


In a Wilderness of Mirrors

by whoistorule



Category: Die Gänsemagd | The Goose Girl, Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Blood, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoistorule/pseuds/whoistorule
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Goose Girl AU of Orphan Black.  The original fairytale is <a href="http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm089.html">here</a>.  I hope you enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	In a Wilderness of Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hellosweetie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellosweetie/gifts).



Once upon a time, or so it goes, there was a Princess, fair, yes, but with hair as dark as the burdens that hung heavy on her, clinging to her limbs, dragging in her gait, until she could go no longer.  There was a ring of gold on her finger that promised her to a man who loved her not, and a kingdom to protect with a marriage contract she could not fulfill.  Eyes loose lidded, lips pursed in determination, she threw herself before a carthorse, leaving all she had in the world behind.

This is not her story.

\--

It was with the Princess’s same-dark eyes that the Usurper watched her royal blood dashed upon the cobbles, her rich purple garments abandoned beside a coin purse.

The Usurper had never seen the Princess before, nor had she silvered glass to gaze upon her own hardened face, but she had oft paused before stilled streams to see the smooth line of her brow, or the way her dark hair curled against her cheeks, had touched her roughened fingers to her chapping lips well enough to know the hearted tips of her cupid’s bow.

Glancing down at the Princess, it was her own face she saw, that the Usurper knew.  The street was dark, the carthorse gone, and the dress beside her; what else was there to do but put it on?  By the moon’s watery light, she pulled the corset from the corpse and slipped it over her own warm flesh; each lace she pulled straightened her spine, forcing regality into her shoulder blades.  With the purple gown kissing her skin, she could feel her cheeks pale appropriately.  In the Princess’s heeled boots, even her gait, her sun-browned legs hidden beneath rich velvet, grew more noble.  Only her calloused hands could give her away, and those she hid behind the Princess’s white gloves.

It seemed a shame to leave the Princess in the street, dirty and naked like the Usurper once was, but dressed like this the Usurper could not stoop amongst the cobbles, splattered with mud and shit that they were, so she left her.  Leave the authorities to guess why a goose girl came to be lying face-down in the dirt, her dress, if it even could be called such, ripped open beside her.

The Usurper paused last to retrieve the Princess’s heavy purse, thinking not to question where the gold came from, only where it would take her.

Take the dress, take the gold, take her daughter and leave, that’s what she would do.  But another shake of the Princess’s weighty purse left the Usurper wanting.  If this was what she carried on her person, what more could be in store behind her thick castle walls? 

\--

The difference between a Princess and a goose girl is that while no one may care where a goose girl comes and goes, the Princess has no such luxury.  She has councilors to attend to, ones who question the slight lilt in her speech, or the way she can no longer seem to recall anyone’s name, and she, of course, has her prince.

Princes are handsome, the Usurper found, handsomer than she could have expected, used to as she was cutpurses and opium mongers, and well mannered at that.  She knew, of course, that the Princess was to be married, but she had not expected her prince to know her quite so well, to expect her sullen-eyed and slow-witted.

Yet when he touched her skin, he made no mention of difference, and his fingers were smoother than her own had ever been.  He was nimble as a cutpurse with his hands, and his mouth tasted better than opium’s sweet smoke ever had.

The Usurper found she liked being a Princess.  It was hard to remember that she meant to leave when she slept at night not beneath thatch, but heavy stone and wood, not on thin straw, but on a downy featherbed.  And if the Prince slept beside her, his muscled arm resting upon her naked belly, well that was all the more reason she had to stay.  To disappear would raise suspicion, and that she could not have.

\--

Silvered glass was common about the palace, and the Usurper grew used to the sight of her own face smiling back beneath velvet and brocade.  But there is a difference between a reflection and the shock of seeing her face live before her, the way she had the night the Princess had stepped before the cantering carthorse.

Yet there was no other explanation for the woman who stood before her than to say it was her reflection come to life, again.

“You’re not the Princess,” the other woman said, hiding her face beneath her scarf once more.

The Usurper had found the Princess’s diary upon her wooden desk, and had found herself curious for the life of a woman who had so much, yet cared so little for the world she lived in to step beyond its threshold.  Why had the Princess done what she had done?  Was the Usurper destined to do the same?

Between splotches of ink and blurring tears, the Usurper had found this address scrawled in a corner of the book; the Princess’s prose had started neat and orderly, but as the pages went on, the writing began to take on a life of its own, spiraling and swerving against the cream parchment, sentences stopping short or beginning halfway through, until the Usurper could make neither head nor tails of what the Princess had meant.

Only this address had been clear in the end, and so the Usurper found herself here, in a simple country town, looking again into the eyes of her double.  Or, perhaps, triple.

“You may be wearing her clothes but you are _not_ the Princess.  Where is she?  What have you done to her?”

“I… she’s… she’s dead.”

Lips trembled on the woman wearing her face, eyes hard, determined not to fill with tears.  “Get inside.  _Now._ Before someone sees you.”

\--

The telltale signs of children were strewn about their Mother’s house, and the Usurper felt her own heart pang for her daughter, hidden away, waiting for her mother to rescue her.

“Did you do it?” There was a crossbow bolt pressed against the Usurper’s jowl before she could think to respond.  The metal was cold and sharp, and the crank ready to pierce her through.  “Did you kill her?”  The Mother’s face was dark with fury and it’s twin, fear.

“No!  No I swear I didn’t.  I found her.  She jumped in front of a carthorse and I found her and I needed— I wanted— well, I took her clothes.  They were just lying there and she didn’t need them anymore, and I… I have a daughter.  I thought I could sell them to save her, to take her away.”

Molasses-slow the metal dropped from below the Usurper’s chin and she felt herself breath harshly, once, twice, coughing with the effort, fear beating deep in her blood.

“Did you find her purse?  It was red.  The Witch made it and I filled it, blessed it, she was to use it to protect us.”

“The Witch?”

Out from the darkened anteroom another woman walked.  This time, the Usurper thought she might find the sight of her own face less of a shock, but it shook her all the same.  Where the Mother’s hair fell straight as wheat stalks and Usurper’s hair curled, the Witch’s hair kinked, her hips swaying, her arms crossed.

“Not a Witch yet, truly, just a Witch-in-training, but I’m all we have.”

“We?” The Usurper sat, hard, the velvet slipping against the smooth wood chair, her thighs bruising from the impact.  “How many of us are there?”

“We don’t know.  Only that there are many.”  The Witch smiled serenely, with each step wafted spices that itched her nose and the faint sweet stink of opium.

The Mother’s voice was shrill when she spoke; her body still folded in fury and fear.  “And there’s someone hunting us!”

\--

They knew nothing of the Fear that hunted them, but for it’s deadly touch.  Fear pierced the German’s eye, red blood blooming like a tiger lily as she whimpered and folded against the plush seats of the Usurper’s borrowed carriage.

Fear followed her wherever she went, hooded and dark until the Usurper caught her out, saw the halo of blonde on her mirrored face, Fear’s back winged with ribbed scars that beaded with fresh blood each time she moved.

It was no wonder that Fear wore her face as the Mother did, as the Witch, for the Usurper felt now she had fallen into the silvered glass that hung along the palace walls; each time she turned it was her own face she saw in their depths, but instead of her familiar dark curls, it was Fear’s golden crown, Fear’s blood-lined eyes, Fear’s crooked gait that stalked her from the shadows.  The glass that mirrored Fear’s face was warped, and so it warped her, made her warbling, crooked, _wrong._

When she slept she saw Fear’s smiling lips, wide and deranged, her mouth cavernous and all too red, tasted her sweet-foul breath so close to her own lips, until she woke, cold sweat shining on her brow, on the swell of her naked breasts, on the flat of her belly, sweat and three bright red drops of blood, Fear’s blood, bright against her pale skin, all the while her Prince slept soundly by her side.

\--

The Witch had troubles of her own, for she trained with other witches, of course, brighter ones, older ones, Warlocks who guided her hand, and a woman who guided her heart, her mind.

She knew, as all witches did, that the world had darkness to it, but there was order in that darkness and she sought to find it.  But as covens breed secrets, those secrets are oft overturned, and her own darkness that she hid away, the Spy revealed with nothing more than accented smiles and soft, red lips.

It was the Witch’s curse to know her own folly and follow its path, for curiosity was her greatest sin.  How could she see the way the Spy’s hips curved when she bent low over a discovery, and not want to press her fingers against them.  How could she watch the shadows play between the Spy’s swelling breasts and not want to trace their lines with her lips?  How could she watch the line of the Spy’s musculature, the way her thighs moved, splitting like warm butter, and not wish to Know what lie between them?

It was curiosity that killed her caution, and curiosity that brought Fear to her door.

\--

The Mother was watched by all she knew, her straight spine never stooping though her hair grew wild, her lips pursed, her heart thundered.  She was watched by the bickering hens, their smiles pretending to a joy their eyes knew not.  She was watched by her husband, his eyes never meeting hers when he whispered his love; his spine snake-slumped from a lack of conviction, of truth.

She had blessed the Princess, trusted her to save her, to save them all from the Fear that grew with the day’s shadows, that left blood on her tongue and sweat on her skin.

It was not joy or riches the Mother wanted, nor was it knowledge or intimacy or truths unimaginable, all she wished for was peace, security, the things she had lost when her mirrors came alive.  It was an end to uncertainty that she hoped for when she raised her crossbow to the wooded targets in the grass, an end to Fear.

\--

Alone they all were, but for those who watched.

The Usurper was lucky.  She had an ally.  She had a friend.  A brother.  Falada he was called, but she called him Fee.  He smiled and simpered and loved her without question.  He hid their shared crimes amongst the dirt and grime with which they once lived, his lying lips no less wearied than her own.

His eyes watched her come and go, they knew of her falsehoods and they forgave.

\--

The Mother taught her how to shoot; the Mother's arms were only steady with a crossbow between them, their dainty thinness not betraying the muscles that lay beneath.

“Your breath must be steady, your body still, or else the weapon will cut both ways, and you will find yourself on your back.”

With each attempt, the Usurper’s muscles strained, pain weaving through her arms, shaking her legs until she could stand no longer.

“The Princess taught me to shoot.  And now I’m teaching you.  She was supposed to protect me— to protect us.”  The Mother’s eyes wavered in the sunlight, and she let her own bow drop, her chest cavernous with necessary breaths.  “Now you have to.  I gave her that purse to protect her.  To protect us all.  She who holds the purse holds the blessing.”

The Usurper felt the heaviness of the Princess’s burdens set into her bones, felt the beat of her heart quicken, her stomach twist with new responsibility.

“When Fear follows you, you must not hesitate.  Raise your bow and shoot.”

\--

Princes are not supposed to love Usurpers with calloused fingers and lying hearts.  Their loves are good and true, with magic that knows them alone, and gifts from forces greater than the evils that follow them.  But the Princess could not bear the weight of his falsehoods, the way his lips gilded words that should have been gold.

He wore not the heart of a true Prince, but one of a watcher, a usurper in his own right, and it was that which bore her down before the carthorse; it was that which tore her heart from her chest even before the life left her eyes.

It was the lies that led this Prince to love the Usurper the way he never had the Princess, and the lies that led him to betray the Warlocks that knew his past and owned his present.

He led the Usurper to their lair, and Fear followed.

\--

“Sisters,” Fear beguiled, her wavering voice otherworldly between reddened lips, cracking with her blood, “We are sisters you and I.”

The Usurper knew it to be true.  She felt the thread that tied Fear to her like shadows to her soles.  Fear followed her more closely than it did her mirrors; her eyes were more the same.

“Your daughter is my daughter.  Your heart is my heart.  Your life is my life.”

The Usurper gulped the putrid air, her eyes following the sallow of Fear’s skin as she danced about the dark room, drawing moonlight to her like moths to a flame.  To each jarring movement, her bowed arms followed, the tip of her arrow pointing straight at Fear’s heart.

“You cannot kill me sister, for we are one and the same.”

The Usurper swallowed once, twice, and pictured her mirrors, the Mother bright, the Witch dark, pictured her Prince, his past coiled round him like a snake, pictured her daughter, the Angel, her blonde hair curling around her cheeks, her smile bright and knowing.

She was the protector, and she would not fail.

With eyes wide in the moonlight, the Usurper shot, and Fear fell, wearing the Usurper’s own face, arms outstretched, mouth wide with true surprise.

“Sister,” she whispered, but the Usurper turned, her footsteps laden with Fear’s dirty blood, her shadow stained brown and cracking.  

Fear lay dying in the darkness as the Usurper walked away, her human heart beating its last few breaths, her human lips crying out for a love she never knew.

The Usurper killed or won all those who knew her secret.  She secured her new life, she won her last battle, from the darkened battleground into the light of her royal she walked.

Why then, did Fear still follow?


End file.
